Embodiments of the invention are related to electrical equipment and, in particular, to electrical equipment used in telecommunications.
As information based industries constitute an ever growing part of national economies in many developed as well as developing countries, telecommunication networks have become an essential part of national infrastructure. Especially in developed economies, industries as well as societies are highly dependent on faster and easier access to information, entertainment, and education via the telecommunications networks. Such telecommunications networks require frequent interfaces with each other and with various telecommunications devices. Many of the widely used communications networks and communications devices require proprietary cabling which use distinct pin-outs. Some of the commonly used interconnection pit-outs used by various networks and devices are the DB-9 and the DB-25 pin-outs used by the RS-232 standard, an RJ-11, RJ-14, RJ-25 and RJ-61 pin-outs used by for terminating telephone lines, etc.
Given their different pin-outs, each of these various cables requires special connectors. For example, an RS-232 cable with a DB-9 pin-out requires a special connector with two rows of connections, with a first row with five connectors and a second row with four connectors. Similarly, an RS-232 cable with a DB-25 pin-out requires a special connector with a first row with thirteen connectors and a second row with twelve connectors. Generally, when a user encounters a situation where one end of the connection has a DB-9 connector that needs to be connected to another end which has a DB-25 connector, the user may use a DB-9 to DB-25 converter. However, given the large number of different pin-outs used in industry, this would require that a user has to carry with them an almost unlimited number of converters that would match each combination of pin-outs on two ends.
Moreover, while the converters for many possible combinations, for example DB-9 to DB-25, are readily available and affordable, converters for some exotic combinations of pin-outs are not. Therefore, quite often it may become very inconvenient
or nearly impossible for a technician at the location requiring such a connection to make necessary connection, leading to potential delays in providing the final communications connections.
As a result, technicians often resort to making their own version of improvised converters using standard cables. However, making these cables correct, even after a first, second, or even third attempt is not always successful. Even when the technician knows the wire requirements on one end, they may not know the pinout requirement on the other end. This may require the technician to go through much experimentation on cables, wasting time and materials. The problem becomes even more acute when the cable length available is finite and too much experimentation may result in a loss of valuable cable length due to many cuts and retries. Moreover, the more a technician experiments with cables to make temporary connections, more it is likely that permanent damage is done to one or more of the cables involved.
Embodiments of the present invention provide solutions to these and other problems.